Sanctuary Trauma and Self Blame

Understanding the wounds(25 slides)

creatively compiled by michael farnworth

“If someone loves you, it should feel like they love you.”

Robert Burney

How many children grow up being told that they were loved but how many didn’t feel it?

Love is not shaming, abusive, controlling, manipulative, demeaning, belittling,

discounting, diminishing, negative, traumatic, humiliating or dismissive.

What if…

What if we were raised by well meaning parents, who because of their own childhoods, could not model for

us what it was like to be loved for who we were and not for what we did.

What happens to us when we live our life attempting to secure the love of our parents by our good behavior, knowing on some level that our outer behavior was

more important than our inner essence?

If we came to that conclusion in relationship to our parents, then what would be the basis for the relationship we would

eventually develop with our higher power?

Wouldn’t it have to based upon the same emotional/spiritual dynamic?

That we would be loved as long as our outer behavior was in

accord with expectations!

Because if it wasn’t in accord then we would be unworthy of love.

At least that’s what it would feel like!

If we concluded that our parents couldn’t love us if we weren’t good enough and our God couldn’t love us if we were not good enough, then how could we love

ourselves unless we met the high expectations of self, parents and God?

Isn’t that the dilemma? And isn’t that why we fantasize about perfection? Because, we believe deep within our

hearts that when perfection arrived, we would finally be worthy of being love.

Pretty heavy duty stuff to deal with!

"It is necessary to own and honor the child who we were in order to Love the person we are.

And the only way to do that is to own that child's experiences, honor that child's feelings, and release the emotional grief energy that we

are still carrying around."

(The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney)

Please Read:

‘Grief, Love and Fear of Intimacy’

by Robert Burney

A Story of Grief, Love and Fear of Intimacyby Robert Burney

I went to a meeting at my home group in Studio City. I was feeling a little crazy. Wound too tight and ready to explode. It was a familiar feeling. It was a feeling that I had drowned in alcohol or taken the edge off of with

marijuana in the old days. But I couldn't do that anymore, so I went to a meeting. My friends name was Steve. He hadn't been my friend for very long although I had known him for years. He had been my agent years earlier and I had disliked him intensely. I was in the process of getting to know him,

and like him, now that we were both in recovery. He saw how up tight I was and asked me to go outside with him. He asked me one simple question: "How old do you feel?" "Eight," I said, and then I exploded. I cried in a way I didn't remember ever crying before - great

heaving sobs wracked my body as I told him what happened when I was eight. I had grown up on a farm in the Midwest. The summer that I turned eight I had my first 4-H calf. 4-H was to us

rural kids kind of like boy scouts was to city kids - a club where farm kids had projects to learn things. I got a calf who weighed about 400 pounds and fed him all spring and summer until he weighed over a thousand

pounds. I tamed him and taught him to allow me to lead him around on a halter so I could show him at the county fair. After the county fair there was another chance to show him at a town nearby and then sell him.

Local business people would buy the calves for more than they were worth to give us kids incentive and teach us how to make money. By the time I was eight, I was completely emotionally isolated and alone. I grew up in a pretty typical American family. My father had been trained to be John Wayne - anger was the only emotion he ever expressed - and my mother had been trained to be a self-sacrificing martyr. Since my mother could get no emotional support from my father - she had very low self-esteem and no boundaries - she used her children to validate and define her. She emotionally incested me by using me emotionally - causing me to feel responsible for her emotions, and feel ashamed that I couldn't protect her from my father's verbal and emotional abuse.

The shame and pain of my father's seeming inability to love me coupled with my mother loving me too much at the same time that she allowed herself and me to be abused by fathers anger and perfectionism - caused me to

shut down to my mothers love and close down emotionally. And then into the life of this little boy who was in such pain, and so isolated,

came a shorthorn calf which he named Shorty. Shorty was the closest thing to a personal pet that I have ever had. On the farm, there were always dogs and cats and other animals - but they weren't mine alone. I

developed an emotionally intimate relationship with that calf. I loved Shorty. He was so tame that I could sit on his back or crawl under his belly. I spent uncounted hours with that calf. I really loved him.

I took him to the county fair and got a Blue Ribbon. Then a few weeks later it was time for the show and sale. I got another Blue Ribbon. When it came time to sell him, I had to lead him into the sale ring while the

auctioneer sang his mysterious selling chant. It was over in a moment and I led Shorty out of the ring to a pen where all the sold calves were put. I took off his halter and let him go. Somehow I knew that my father

expected me not to cry, and that my mother expected me to cry. By that time, I was very clear from the role-modeling of my father that a man did not cry - ever. And I had so much suppressed rage at my mother for not

protecting me from my fathers raging that I was passive - aggressively doing things the opposite of what I thought she wanted. So, I slipped his halter off, patted him on the shoulder, and closed the gate - consigning my best friend to the pen of calves that was going to the packing house to be slaughtered. No tears for this

eight year old, no sirree, I knew how to be a man. That poor little boy. It wasn't until almost 30 years later, leaning up against the side of the meeting room, that I

got the chance to cry for that little boy. With great heaving sobs, tears pouring down my cheeks, and snot running out my nose, I had my first experience with deep grief work. I did not know anything about the process at the time - I just knew that somehow that wounded little boy was still alive inside of me. I also did not know at the time that part of my life's work was going to be helping other people to reclaim the wounded little boys

and girls inside of them. Now I know that emotions are energy which if not released in a healthy grieving process gets stuck in the body. The only way for me to start healing my wounds is to go back to that little boy and cry the tears or own the rage

that he had no permission to own back then. I also know that there are layers of grief from the emotional trauma I experienced. There is not only trauma about what happened back then - there is also grief about the effect those experiences had on me later in life. I get to cry once again for that little boy as I write this. I have been sobbing for that little boy and the emotional trauma he experienced - but I am also sobbing for the man

that I became.

I learned in childhood, and carried into adulthood, the belief that I am not lovable. It felt like I was not lovable to my mother and father. It felt like the God I was taught about didn't love me - because I was a sinful human.

It felt like anyone who loved me would eventually be disappointed, would learn the truth of my shameful being. I spent most of my life alone because I felt less lonely alone. When I was around people I would feel my need to connect with them - and feel my incredible loneliness for human relationships - but I did not know how to connect in a healthy way. I have had a great terror of the pain of abandonment and betrayal - but even more

than that, the feeling that I could not be trusted because I am not good enough to love and be loved. At the core of my being, at the foundation of my relationship with myself, I feel unworthy and unlovable.

And now I know that the little boy, that I was, felt like he betrayed and abandoned the calf that he loved. Proof of his unworthiness. And not only did he betray his best friend - he did it for money. Another piece of the

puzzle of why money has been such a big issues in my life. In recovery I had learned that because of the power my father and society gave to money I had spent much of my life saying that money wasn't important to me at

the same time that I was always focused on it because I never had enough. I have definitely had a dysfunctional relationship with money in my life and 8 year old Robby gave me a glimpse at another facet of that

relationship. Robby has also helped me to understand another piece of my fear of intimacy issues. I have been going

through a transformation one more time in my recovery. Each time that I need to grow some more - need to surrender some more of who I thought I was in order to become who I am - I get to peel another layer of the onion. Each time this happens I get to reach a deeper level of honesty and see things clearer than I ever have

before. Each time, I also get to release some of the emotional energy through crying and raging. Through clearer eyes, and with deeper emotional honesty, I get to look at all of my major issues again to heal

them some more. I used to think that I could deal with an issue and be done with it - but now I know that is not the way the healing process works. So recently I have gotten the opportunity to revisit my issues of

abandonment and betrayal, of deprivation and discounting. My issues with my mother and father, with my gender and sexuality, with money and success. My issues with the God I was taught about and the God-Force

that I

choose to believe in. My patterns of self-abusive behavior that are driven by my emotional wounds - and the attempts that I make to forgive myself for behavior that I have been powerless over. And they all lead me back

to the core issue. I am not worthy. I am not good enough. Something is wrong with me. At the core of my relationship is the little boy who feels unworthy and unlovable. And my relationship with

myself was built on that foundation. The original wounding caused me to adapt attitudes and behavior patterns which caused me to be further traumatized and wounded - which caused me to adapt different

attitudes and behavior patterns which caused me to be further traumatized and wounded in different ways. Layer upon layer the wounds were laid - multifaceted, incredibly complex and convoluted is the disease of

Codependence. Truly insidious, baffling and powerful. Through revisiting the eight year old who I was I get to understand on a new level why I have always been

attracted to unavailable people - because the pain of feeling abandoned and betrayed is the lesser of two evils. The worst possible thing, to my shame-based inner children, is to have revealed how unworthy and unlovable I am - so unworthy that I abandoned and betrayed my best friend, Shorty the shorthorn calf that I loved and who

seemed to love me back. It is no wonder that at my core I am terrified of loving someone who is capable of loving me back.

By owning and honoring the feelings of the child who I was, I can do some more work on letting him know that it wasn't his fault and that he deserves forgiveness. That he deserves to be Loved.

So today, I am grieving once more for the eight year old who was trapped, and for the man he became. I am grieving because if I don't own that child and his feelings - then the man will never get past his terror of

allowing himself to be loved. By owning and cherishing that child, I am healing the broken heart of both the child and the man - and giving that man the opportunity to one day trust himself enough to love someone as

much as he loved Shorty.

The moral of the story is that we all have childhood energy that we have suppressed,

fragmented off and are unaware of.

The problem comes when that energy starts leaking out into our adult lives and onto people that we love and we are clueless as to what it is

all about.

Anyone who has been married for more than a few months realizes how easy it is to age regress

when we become defended or hurt.

The following slides represent a very common intellectual paradigm that exists in our culture regarding the raising and discipline of children.

Alice Miller refers to this intellectual paradigm as the ‘Poisonous Pedagogy’ and it carries a lot

of energy with it!

"Discipline must start early enough. Already in the first few months, babies find out that their crying summons

attention and concern. A mother who lets herself be led to respond to every whimper has already lost the battle. (Obviously a baby needs to be soothed, but it

need not be picked up every time it cries.) If children do not learn in the first years that their self-will must be

controlled, when will they? To hold out firmly and consistently against a child’s will is often irksome. It is always easier to let things slide. Yet parents who prize comfort above the effort of discipline will find that, in

the long run, their children will become more and more troublesome.“

http://www.bruderhof.com/articles/jca/LittleChild/Positive-Discipline.htm

How would it be to live in a home where your infantile attempts to express your needs via the only language you had (crying) were viewed by your parents as attempts to manipulate them?

How could they harden themselves against your attempts at communicating with them?

The following story represents the unintended consequences that often happen when a child

has well meaning but over controlling parents…

“When he was really little (about 3-4 years old) David’s mom was sick and so his dad took him to the store to buy some medicine for her. David saw some lip balm that had “medicated” written on it. He

asked his dad what the word was and what it meant, and was given the response that it was like medicine.

David connected that with the medicine that they were getting for his mom and told his dad that the lip balm was what they needed to buy. His dad told him no, and David fought back telling his dad

that the lip balm was what they were looking for-- what his mom needed. His dad refused to buy it and so when his dad wasn’t looking he put it in his pocket and took it home.

When he got home David went up to his moms room and gave it to her, telling her he had got it for her but she wasn’t supposed to tell dad. She then asked him about it, and discovered that he had

stolen it from the store.

His dad then took him back to the store and made him return it...he felt shamed and embarrassed and scared—he had to give it back to the cashier without the help of his dad.

What a good child, to want to give his mom something that he thought she needed...and yet he was so harshly punished and shamed for that act.”

Due to a parent’s own immaturity and unresolved issues from their childhood histories

they may often unintentionally pressure the child to respond in ways that are counter to their own healthy growth as young human

beings.

When parents enmesh or abandon their children in the hopes of making them turn out a

certain way- then they may be guilty of abuse and trauma- due to love withdrawal and threats

of safety.

“What I see are the scars of scathing comments and angry slaps tattooed upon the tender skin of a child who grew up believing he was just another

burden.

Excess baggage. A waste of oxygen. The drive to prove yourself a success, a worthy human being, can be a difficult one if your motor was perpetually

lacking oil and fuel in the early stages.

Your "head" gaskets leak and your spark is weak... and it makes you cringe just to turn the key when you wake up in the mornings because you're so

afraid you aren't going anywhere...”

-Helen Grainge

Children are survivors and the children will do what they have to do to fit in- to be accepted and loved.

Children will often idealize their childhoods to keep them safe from the energies of disappointing their parent’s high

expectations of them.

They may adopt a role play that brings them acceptance from parents but which eventually disconnects them from their own

true self.

This disconnect is called sanctuary trauma.

Sanctuary trauma is common in our culture and manifests itself in multiple ways.

It can occur via abuse and trauma and can also occur via seemingly gentle and kind love withdrawal and emotional

manipulation that may seem sweet and innocent but is insidious and wounding.

One way that it happens is explained by the next slide when getting approval for saying or doing the right thing out weighs

any other option.

“I think that I know what you mean. We have been told from birth that we are divine children of God. The thing is, that we have been taught this for so long

that in some ways, I have lost the importance of it.

When we were children and they asked us who we were, we said: ‘Children of God’. Sure that got us a pat on the back or even sometimes a jolly rancher or

some other toy that showed us that we said the right thing.

That, I think, is when most of us started into the routine of finding the answer to the question and not thinking about the question or the answer in a deeper

meaning then just to have the answer in our mind and to give it when asked to do so.

I do not have an answer to your question but I do have those same thoughts. When and how, I will find out deep with in, I do not know. The scary thought is

that if I don't ever find out- then I am ok with that. Is that wrong? and some would say YES (and I think that I would agree to that)- but still, why am I not

worried about it?”

Many children will blame themselves if things don’t turn out the way they are suppose to.

These children grow up to be adults and the self-blaming mentality continues.

Are you one of them?

the end